Topical Tropes

These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.

Broken Base: The band has, so far, the most divisive fan base in the music industry, to wit: the devout fans who stuck with them through all six studio albums, those who hail Hybrid Theory and/or Meteora more than the the last three studio albums, and the post-Meteora die hard fans.

Dead Horse Genre: Nu Metal, which was later tossed overboard to rid themselves of the title. At least, until The Hunting Party.

Minutes To Midnight features some songs that capitalize on the popularity of Alternative Rock and Emo as well, as those genres were losing popularity. This is why it led to a lot of fans leaving.

Brad Delson gets some recognition, if only for the Funny Afro, and Mr. Hahn is well known, or at least he was during their early years. Rob Bourdon and Dave "Phoenix" Farrell however? Not so much.

Fandom Rivalry: Many Deftones fans are resentful towards Linkin Park for allegedly copying the band's sound. The Deftones are indeed a major influence on the band, although many Linkin Park fans enjoy the Deftones, and the two bands have gone on tour together many times.

An episode for their album has one where the band is reading Youtube comments. "When I first heard this song, I thought it was utter crap. I was so disappointed. Then I realized my headphones weren't all the way in."

"Funny Aneurysm" Moment: The Xero demo "Reading My Eyes" features Mike rapping that he is "The microphone molester". A couple of years later, Chester Bennington would join the band, and had been tormented by people at school calling him "Chester the molester" (not helped by the fact he actually was molested for six years as a child). One can imagine him wincing when hearing the lyrics to Reading My Eyes, and it's a small wonder why it wasn't rerecorded by Linkin Park until they did it live in 2006 from fan requests.

Gateway Music: Let's just say more than a few metalheads were introduced to hard rock/metal through this band. Whether or not they admit it is another story. And if you're young enough and have not heard any of the Beastie Boys, Linkin Park could have also been a gateway to the "eccentric" Alternative Rock scene with bands like U2 and The Cure, due to their experimenting with electronic and Hip Hop elements.

Hilarious in Hindsight: "One Step Closer" and "Numb", two of Linkin Park's most well-known songs, share the same names with two lesser-known U2 songs. Now, what was one of the complaints about "Shadow of the Day"? The fact that U2's "One Step Closer" came out four years after LP's song doesn't make this any less funny.

Mike's side project is most known for "Remember the Name", though most people couldn't tell who performs it if they heard it. Also hilarious is that Fort Minor's actual big hit was "Where'd You Go?", which has gone out of people's memories whereas "Remember the Name" is the song that is "remembered" today.

After Idina Menzel's "Let It Go" in Frozen made a much bigger impression on pop culture than "Iridescent", the repetition of the lyrics "Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?" and "Let it go" are hilarious to listen to.

Magnum Opus: Hybrid Theory, being one of the best-selling debut albums of the 21st Century. Although some fans would consider A Thousand Suns to be this instead, due to the level of experimentation they used in creating it.

We have a rapist in Linkin Park.* This particular line came from the same infamous news interview from Antoine Dodson that spawned the Bed Intruder song. Obviously, the fact that Lincoln also sounds like "Linkin" did not go unnoticed.

Where is the Old LP?* Began circulation among the divided fan base upon release of Minutes to Midnight.

"Try the ketchup, motherfucker!"note Someone misheard the line from the chorus of When they Come for Me, and ran with it. There's now even a fan shirt of the misheard line, with Mike wearing a tuxedo.

I tried so hard, and got so far...* In the end, it doesn't even matter.

Linkin Park wrote "Crawling" about Chester's genuine struggles with abuse as a child, and "Papercut" about someone struggling with meth addiction, but they were widely adopted by teenagers as songs to express their frustration at their parents for petty reasons. "One Step Closer" was not serious either, the lyrics were just taking out their frustrations at the producer for making them do endless retakes of "Runaway" because they couldn't make the arrangement work. The band were so conscious of the audience they were attracting that they moved away from the nu-metal genre and started writing lyrics about other things.

They later wrote "Valentine's Day". Guess what it's not about? Though stumpingly seen as an emo teen break-up song for some reason, it's actually about a funeral.

Nightmare Fuel: With "Wisdom, Justice, and Love" on A Thousand Suns, Linkin Park has managed to make a speech from freakin' MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. into this by distorting his voice to hell in the latter part of the clip. And then they replay it a couple times just for good measure.

It starts off normal, and ends up sounding almost exactly like Sovereign.

Counting the videos, the one for "Final Masquerade" had so much cryptic symbollisms that it's both confusing and disturbing at the same time.

They Changed It, Now It Sucks: What most of the fanbase's reaction to Minutes to Midnight amount to. It became more and more divisive with the folowing two albums, until the release of The Hunting Party.

Some reactions to Reanimation as well during its initial release, being a remix compilation rather than the Hybrid Theory sequel they were hoping for.

Vindicated by History: Meteora was seen as a cheap rehash of Hybrid Theory when it came out, but when the band changed their style, more fans warmed up to it.

Each New Sound Album tends to get this once the hoopla over the different musical style dies down. A Thousand Suns, once considered their worst albums, is now acknowledged as having some of their best songs.

Phoenix: The first time LP went to Japan a fan handed me a letter at a meet and greet. The envelope was addressed "Dear Mike, Joe, Chester, Brad, Rob, and bassplayer man".

Mike pokes fun at Phoenix and his Twittering on his blog. He even made a banner that says "Blogging Totally Pwns Twittering" for fans of his blog to post on their websites in a response to one of Phoenix's Twitter posts.

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